School District or Charter School Certification of Compliance

Each year the Texas Education Code (TEC) requires that the superintendent of a school district and chief operating officer of an open-enrollment charter school shall certify annually to the commissioner that the district or charter school has complied with Texas Education Code, Section 22.085, relating to the employement of individuals convicted of certain offenses.

Chapter 22, Subchapter C, of the TEC requires school districts and charter schools to ensure that certain individuals are fingerprinted to undergo a national criminal history records review and the other individuals undergo a name-based criminal history record information review.

A Certification of Compliance survey is designed to assist school districts and open-enrollment charters in fulfilling the statutory requirement found in TEC §22.085(f) confirming that they have complied with all the duties imposed by TEC §22.085. Those duties include:

performing all required criminal history checks on employees.

ensuring that all district contractors perform criminal history checks on contractor employees who have the opportunity for direct unsupervised contact with the district’s students.

discharging or refusing to hire any individual who has been convicted of an offense described in TEC §22.085(a).

not allowing any contractor employee who has been convicted of an offense described in TEC §22.085(a) to serve at the district or charter.

The following links list those districts and open-enrollment charter schools who failed to return the “Criminal History Compliance Certification” for the school year indicated, and have therefore failed to certify their compliance with TEC §22.085(f).

Note: The inclusion of schools on these lists does not mean they have failed to conduct the background checks as required in TEC Chapter, 22, Subchapter C, only that they have not completed the Compliance Certification as requested.